SkyRocket Dental

Dear Doctor,

I know what your thinking…. I’ve already got enough things to worry about this year…. patients not showing up for their appointments, not collecting enough money to pay the bills, losing a key employee, Ms. Smith and her darn denture that has never fit, etc. etc….

Why should I be thinking about my dental fee schedule?

Because…

A statistically based, well-equilibrated dental fee schedule can increase the profitability of your practice and literally add TENS OF THOUSANDS of dollars to your bottom line every year.

Hello, I’m Dr. Tony Ratliff and I’m a practicing dentist and dental fee consultant. I want to personally welcome you to our Dental Fee Equilibration™ Program.

I know how tough it can be to maintain your production in this economy and when patients don’t schedule their treatment.

Heck, here in Indiana all of my retired GM and Chrysler patients just lost the dental insurance they’ve had for 20 years.

As of last July, they get zero…none…nada…no dental coverage at all.

This makes it really difficult to get these patients to keep their six month re-care appointments. Let alone pay 100% out-of-pocket for their needed dentistry.

I also know how easy it is to procrastinate when it comes to raising your dental fees and what’s it’s like….thinking that your patients might leave, if you do raise them.

To be honest… most of our patients already think our fees are too high anyway.

Whatever you do…don’t listen to the dental consultants that say keep raising your fees every year….

DO NOT RAISE YOUR FEES THIS YEAR.

I’m telling you…. this year, in this economy, you had better not blindly raise your fees unless you’re prepared to lose more patients.

And, guess what… if your one of the lucky dentists that has too many patients, then this program isn’t for you. Stop reading and go check your hygienist:)

If you have too many dental patients in your practice, then you can blindly go ahead and raise them another 5-10% and don’t worry…

Hopefully, some will leave.

But, even if you do have too many patients…I’ll still guarantee you that you are losing tons of money by not having a well-balanced and well-equilibrated dental fee schedule.

Remember, “The success of your practice is dependent on your ability to manage the “money” in your practice, and the “money” is directly related to your fee schedule.”

It’s not your fault.

Maybe you purchased a practice and inherited your fee schedule; maybe you started a practice from scratch and borrowed a fee schedule like I did.

Either way, if your dental fees have never been equilibrated or balanced, I guarantee that you’re not maximizing your potential and you’re leaving lots of money on the table.

Ask yourself these three questions when it comes to setting your dental fees this year?

• If your anterior root canal is in the 85^th percentile fee for your zip code, does it make sense that your molar root canal is at the 70^th percentile?

• Why is your two surface resin fee at the 80^th percentile for your area and your three surface resin in the 90^th percentile?

• If your bitewing radiographs are $38 and covered at 100% by your patient’s insurance and their insurance company would have paid $41, could you have charged $41 for the procedure?

When I asked myself these questions….my answers were…No…I don’t know…and sure I could have charged more.

Don’t RAISE your fees this year. Equilibrate™ Your Fees!

Equilibrating your fees is a small change that can result in a huge difference in the profitability and success of your dental practice.

The Dental Fee Equilibration™ story…

I created the Dental Fee Equilibration™ Program with one goal in mind: to help successful dentists and not-so-successful dentists become more productive and profitable in their practices.

If you want to become more productive and profitable then this program is for you.

I was attending a dental implant seminar in 2007, and we were talking about the advantages of adding dental implants into our practices when someone asked the question,

“Have you guys ever balanced your fee schedule – it was the best investment I ever made in my practice?”

I responded with, “Yes, we paid to have it done several years ago and it worked out great for us. I got my total investment back in about 30 days”.

Balancing my fees was definitely the best investment I have ever made in my practice from an ROI (return on investment) standpoint.

Another dentist said, “Yeah, I got my money back in about a week.”

Then it hit me in the head like a ton of bricks… A well-equilibrated fee schedule… this is the quickest and fastest way to make any dental practice more productive and more profitable without making any other changes in the practice.

That was the start of my Dental Fee Equilibration™ Program.

When I got home from the Implant Seminar, I researched the information, filed the paperwork to start my new company, and talked with people in both the Medical and Dental Community that were involved with ADA coding, fee schedules and insurance.

Then we went to work on developing our software program that helps “crunch the numbers” and Equilibrate™ the Fees based on practice demographics, historic data and zip code areas.

See… my partners and I are always looking for ways to make our own dental practices more profitable because over the last 15 years of practicing dentistry we’ve watched the average overhead in a practice increase from 50% to 70%…

This increase in overhead translates into most dentists having to work a lot harder for the same amount of net income.

After I completed the “beta” program, I Equilibrated the fees in one of my own dental practices and it made a $30,000 difference without really even raising the fees – just from Equilibrating them.

Since I had paid to have them balanced in the past, I was totally shocked to discover that in a few short years they were already out-of-balance by so much.

I assumed most of our fees were at the 80^th percentile for our zip code area, but actually many of them were out-of-balance. We had fees in the 70^th percentile and the 95^th percentile.

Every year we raise our fees, but I guess we weren’t really consistent because what had once been balanced was now way out-of-balance!

I started Equilibrating some of my dental buddies’ fees and discovered that many of their fees were a lot worse off than mine…

Most of their fees were all over the board ranging from the 40^th percentile to the 90^th percentile.…they’re adult prophy would be at the 85^th percentile, but their children’s prophy would still be at the 65^th percentile…what’s up with that!

…in one of my friends practice, he was able to increase his collections by $88,202 by just equilibrating his fee schedule… he was able to add $88,202 to his bottom line in only 12 months.

Now, I work mostly with dental consultants and their clients to help increase productivity and profitability in various types of dental practices across the country, but I prefer to work with the dentist directly.

The best thing about my program is that it’s predictable and that “it works every time”.

Our average client sees about a $40,000 increase in his or her profit within 12 months….

…that’s enough to buy a new car, take your dream vacation or cover your overhead while you take the month of August off!

And, even more important is the fact that you don’t have to work any harder or see any more patients to be more profitable.

Our personalized “zip code specific” Analysis and Dental Fee Equilibration^TM will help balance your fees, optimize your reimbursement, and maximize your profits.

This is the information that the insurance companies would rather you not have, but it’s really a simple technique that can make a huge difference in the profitability of a dental practice.

Here’s what our Dental Fee Equilibration^TM Program does for you and your practice:

• Allows you to take the guesswork out of setting your dental fees forever.
• Assures your staff that you’re not overcharging your patients and gives them confidence that you’re not just pulling numbers out of a hat.
• Gives you confidence in knowing that your dental fees are based on statistical data and information.
• Rebalances your fees to a consistent percentile based on your individual zip code area.
• Gives you an idea of what others in your zip code area are charging for their dental services.
• Reveals coding errors and mistakes that your staff may be making that ends up costing you thousands of dollars.
• Assures you are maximizing your reimbursement and profit.

Realize this, a slight increase and rebalancing of your fees can lead to a significant increase in your profitability with little or no negative impact to your current patients or their insurance companies.

Here’s an example.

Let’s say you have an above average dental practice and you’re comfortable with your dental fees being in the 85th percentile for your zip code area, and most of your fees are within a few percentile points, but several are substantially under priced…

…maybe they are only in the 75th percentile.

If your two and three surface resins are accidentally at this 75th percentile, 10% lower than you intended, you might be losing $15 – $25 per resin you do this year.

If you do 60 two and/or three surface resins every month, that’s $14,400 you’ve just flushed down the toilet in these two resin fee codes alone.

The insurance companies would have probably paid you more and it would have only cost your patients a few extra dollars, but your profit would have been a whopping $14,400 more without you working any harder or doing any additional resins.

What about your one surface posterior resin fee, your anterior root canal fee, your surgical extraction fee, and many other basic dental procedures that you do every day….over and over?

These $15 -$40 differences multiplied by the number of procedures you do in a year can easily add up to TENS OF THOUSANDS of dollars….and that’s no exaggeration.

So what are you waiting on? Pick up the phone and call today (317-776-8600) or send me an email at drtonyratliff@yahoo.com and say, “I want to get started on the Dental Fee Equilibration™ Program ASAP.

It’s really simple and fast… so, pick up the phone and call right now.

Here’s all we need from you to get started with your Dental Fee Equilibration^TM Program. Just complete these three steps and you’ll be finished in a few minutes.

1. A completed simple, 3-page questionnaire.

2. A 12 month practice production report itemized by ADA codes, and

3. Your current fee schedule

Call or send me an email today and I will email you the questionnaire in a matter of hours, we’ll collect your information and current fee schedule, gather the data from your practice and perform a complete fee analysis comparing your fees with those of other dentists in your zip code area.

We’ll look at all the data and do a personalized Dental Fee Equilibration™ Report for your practice and overnight you the results.

Within four or five days, you’ll have a well-equilibrated, properly balanced fee schedule and be making more money by next week.

Don’t delay… every day you wait you are costing yourself and your practice more money!

What’s the investment?

This is the greatest part, the total investment is $1250 which includes: a complete Dental Fee Analysis, personalized Dental Fee Equilibration™ Report, and telephone consultation if needed…

…and don’t worry if you don’t have time we’ll deal directly with your staff. Just tell them to call us at 317-776-8600 or send me an email.

Many dentists have gotten their full investment back within two or three weeks, others one or two months. You’ll have your investment back in no time, and the rest will be pure profit for you and your practice.

This really is the easiest and fastest way to increase the productivity and profitability of a dental practice!